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Monday, January 26, 2015

ICFIFC: Joker (2012)

Joker is an 2012 Hindi science fiction comedy film directed by Shirish Kunder, and also his second directorial venture after Jaan-E-Mann. The film stars Akshay Kumar opposite Sonakshi Sinha in lead roles. This was the second film in which Sinha paired opposite Kumar after Rowdy Rathore (2012). The film released worldwide on 31 August 2012, and received mixed to negative response upon release. Despite collecting mediocre box office collections, the film was panned by the audience and was declared a 'disaster' at the box office.

Shirish Kunder had the project in development for several years before finding financial backing and hit films, and had to negotiate for use of the specific title which Kunder stated is important to the script itself. The film is being produced by Farah Khan, Shirish Kunder, and Akshay Kumar under the banner of Three's Company and Hari Om Entertainment. The film was shot in 3D using 3D cameras, however in June 2012, it was announced that the film was no longer in 3D any more, since Ra.One and Don 2 have taken the goals, if Joker flopped it would be a loss on the whole crew, therefore the film will only be released in 2D format. According to director, Shirish Kunder, "It is an underdog story about how individuals make it big in life and in the process, get help from aliens from a fictional planet".

Agastya is a scientist, working on the development of a communication system, to communicate with aliens. But Agastya loses the faith of his seniors and is allotted with a deadline of one month to conclude his project with some substantial results.

In the mean time Agastya is informed by his girlfriend Diva about his father's illness. On hearing this they both depart for his native village Paglapur, whose colorful inhabitants include a man who speaks in gibberish, another who thinks he is a lamp post and everyone else who think that the World War II is still going on.

Soon after reaching there, Agastya finds that he was called on a false pretext of illness by his father.

On getting apprised about truth, Agastya decides to move back to the US, but after hearing the plight of the inhabitants of Paglapur, due to the brushing aside of the village by the government because of its being absent from the demarcated map of India, he makes his mind to come out with some solution for the problem.

As the story proceeds, Agastya comes up with a quaint idea pertaining to the crop circle and arrival of aliens in his village, in order to fetch a recognition for his otherwise isolated village undergoing a plight of neglect ever since the independence.

With frames moving ahead, Agastya along with other villagers creates crop circle in Paglapur and spreads the rumor about the arrival of aliens in the village. And from there, amid tremendous media hype, takes over some hilarious sequences knitted around UFO and fictitious man made aliens.

In the end, the whole joke about the fake aliens is found out and at the end of the movie real aliens come and give the village the gift of oil.

Joker received negative reviews from critics. Based on 16 reviews, review aggregate site desimartini.com gave the film the verdict, "Apart from an interesting concept and a handful of funny moments, Joker is drag and doesn't work as a comedy or as a sci-fi caper. Skip it!" The site's average audience rating is 2/5. Independent Bollywood gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and said "A Funny and weird entertainer with message". Soumyadipta Banerjee of In.com gave 0.5 out of 5 stars and said "Not only that the aliens are weird, the whole movie seems be in some weird planet after a point of time". Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV Movies.com gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Joker is a crude joke of a film that will leave you in tears unless you have a stomach strong enough to digest such unmitigated junk." Noted film critic Taran Adarsh also gave it 1 out of 5 stars and labeled it as a complete "disaster" and a "joke of a film".

And the answer is…Yes, there are elaborate dance routines for no good reason!

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About the Author

Michael currently works as a technician in the Entertainment Industry, he has been a comedian, a musician, an actor, a radio personality and The King of Sweden for about 2 months. He and his wife are currently working on the script for their own horror movie and he was written two novels and a dozen short stories...every one rejected by publishers. He is also the Patron Saint of Promotion and is personally responsible for the failure of two (2) financial institutions.